The Empress
Tarot cards, being less, and Mother's Day
A few weeks ago I bought a notebook at a local witch store. I’d admired it online for awhile but could never bring myself to buy it because the shop is in the U.K. which meant I’d have to deal with exchange rates and shipping. The cover of the notebook shows a brown rabbit circled with stars with it’s paw on an open pomegranate, “The Empress” written below it. It was part of the company, Fable England’s, Tarot Tales collection which was illustrated by Jessica Roux, an artist I admire and who’s oracle deck I already own. So when the witch store near me got it in stock I naturally bought it, convincing myself that I was saving money because I didn’t have to pay an exchange rate or shipping.
I don’t really know what drew me to the notebook. Roux’s illustrations are always stunning, but when it comes to the Major Arcana I’ve always felt more drawn to the Strength card than any other. Roux had even illustrated a Strength design, but it didn’t hold my attention like The Empress did. While I’m happy to see rabbits hopping along on lawns, munching on grass now that the weather is getting nicer I don’t have a kinship to them. I like drinking pomegranate juice and the symbolism it has to Persephone, but otherwise I can’t think of any reason I’d be drawn to it this time when I never have before. When I bought the notebook I also bought a mystery pack, and in the mystery pack I received a tarot pin, also of the Empress.
There are two tarot decks I use when reading for myself. My favourite is my first deck, The Wild Unknown, where the Empress is shown as a tall tree with pink blossoms, a waning crescent moon in the top left corner. Kim Krans, the creator of the deck, uses the words “Creation, Nature, The Mother” to describe the Empress. My second deck is the Tarot of the Divine which I usually have on me, where the Empress is shown as Our Lady of Guadalupe, also known as the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus. “The Empress is a loving and protective mother” is the first line Yoshi Yoshitani, the creator of the deck, uses to describe the card.
Motherhood is the clear theme of The Empress, and I am motherless, which is possibly why I don’t feel drawn to the card. That being said, I don’t really like the term motherless. It’s one I’ve found used a lot online by other people whose mom’s have died, and I understand it. They, we, are mother-less. Our mom’s our dead, gone. We are down a mom, less one. But whenever I hear the word it is as if I am less because my mom is dead. Less than without her. And I know that’s my own problem, my issue of focusing on what these words can mean than what they do, but still I am not less than because I no longer have a mom. I grieve, but I am not less because of that.
I don’t often pull the Empress card but when I do it sometimes feels like a joke, this card so focused on maternal energy that is no longer around me. Less than. I see tarot cards as a mirror and on the rare occasions I have pulled it I can’t decipher what it means. Am I supposed to be acting more like my mom? Am I supposed to be motherly? Do I want to be a mother? Is it a sign that my mom is watching over me? Is it a sign that she’s disappointed in me? Or is it just a card with a tree, a card with the Virgin Mary, just a card that doesn’t really mean anything at all? All I know is that when I try to see my reflection in The Empress the glass is fogged, the image smudged. I can’t see myself in it.
I once had a dream that I woke up in my room and found one of my friends shuffling her Wild Unknown tarot deck. I watched as she shuffled the deck, focused on the cards as one jumped out. The Empress. She took the card between her fingers and showed me the pink tree, the black background and said “This one isn’t for you” before putting the card beside her and continuing shuffling the deck. My dream ended before I found out what card was for me.
I keep forgetting about Mother’s Day. Not remembering is a usual enough thing, I’ll go into a store and wonder why there are so many flowery things on display before remembering who they’re advertising for. I mark all the Mother’s Day sale emails as read without actually reading them. But forgetting is new, not realizing that the day is here is new. I don’t know if that’s a good thing. It doesn’t feel like a good thing, that now nine years without celebrating I’m just forgetting about it. But I guess forgetting about it is better than dwelling and dreading it happening.
My dad’s girlfriend wishes him a Happy Mother’s Day every year because she says he plays both roles now and I know that’s true in a way, I know what she’s saying and it feels cruel to say that it isn’t the same. It doesn’t feel the same. Yes, my dad acts as both parents, but he is still my dad, my mom is my mom. Was my mom. I know what she means but it isn’t the same, my dad is not my mom. My mom is gone, dead. I am motherless, but not less than without her. Just less as in without, less as in missing her. Always.
I have written enough about grief, I will probably never stop writing about it or about my mom. I’ve sometimes been told that when I bring her up I bring the conversation down, change the mood, lower it. It makes people sad, it makes people uncomfortable. And both of those things are true, but it doesn’t stop the fact that death is an inevitability, that yes it’s sad my mom is dead but I should be allowed to talk about her without being blamed for it. I read a book recently that said we’re dead longer than we’re alive, which is terrifying but true. We are all born and we will all die, and we will all love someone who will die. We will be less them, but not less than without them.
I haven’t written anything in my Empress notebook yet, not because I view it as more special or sacred than any of my others, I simply have too many notebooks, and I like finishing a notebook before starting a new one. So for now the Empress notebook sits on my cart of notebooks waiting to be used, my Empress pin is punched into a corkboard on my wall, the other Empress cards shuffled snugly in their decks. Maybe someday I will see myself reflected back more clearly.
What Else I’ve Been Doing:
Reading: Finished I’m Afraid You’ve Got Dragons by Peter S. Beagle, The Reappearance of Rachel Price by Holly Jackson. Currently reading Interesting Facts About Space by Emily Austin and The Ill-Fitting Skin by Shannon Robinson.
Listening To: Fantasy Playlist
Watching: Season Two of Six Feet Under, Season Two of What We Do In the Shadows, One Pace (Arlong Park).